Will Games and Emerging Technologies Influence the Learning Landscape?

Abstract

Read newspapers and professional educational journals, attend a national or state conference, or review the offerings of a university catalog, and you soon encounter statistics like 92 percent of children ages 2–17 play video and computer games (Beck & Wade, 2004); 60 percent of Americans play interactive games on a regular basis (Kirriemuir, 2002); 78 percent of American families have video game equipment in their homes (Simpson, 2005). You will also read that 78 percent of 18–29 year olds use the Internet in their daily lives (Ramaley & Zia, 2005), yet only 38 percent of college students report using the Internet in their classes (Ramaley & Zia, 2005). Outside the classroom, students are creating a new shared culture, showing us new ways to learn and communicate and make sense of physical and virtual identities and worlds. They are showing us that what happens in virtual worlds is often just as meaningful as what happens offline (Taylor, 2006). They work autonomously or with others—playing with others online who may protect and advise them or playing next to others who play the same game. They know where to obtain helpful resources. However, these mainly young gamers do not just play games and consult resources; they create game guides, answers to FAQs, maps, overviews, strategies, fanfic (fanfiction—stories about the gaming characters or settings written by game fans rather than by game creators), and character-planning guides. All of this adds up to a different kind of play and developmental environment, which influences a different developmental process and way of seeing the world and thinking than experienced by generations before.